Wednesday, 31 August 2016

Podocarps are the second largest family of Conifers today, with 194 species in 19 genera known. Unlike most Conifers, Podocarps are entirely tropical distribution, with most species being found in montain rainforests, though they are also found in lowland forests. The group is quite ancient, becoming widespread in both hemispheres early in the Jurassic, which suggests an origin late in the Triassic or very early in the Jurassic, though molecular evidence suggests most living species are descended from a common ancestor that lived in the late Cretaceous ot early Palaeocene.

The wood is described as Podocarpoxylon donghuaiense, where Podocarpoxylon is an existing genus name applied to fossil Podocarp wood, and donghuaiense means 'from Donghaui'. The wood comes from the Eocene Nadu Formation, and is the first described fossil Podocarp wood from China, though fossil Podocarp leaves have been described from the Eocene of Hainan Island and Guangdong Province in South China.

Podocarpoxylon donghuaiense is unusual in a Podocarp wood, in that it has growth rings, something not seen in modern or previosly described wood of the group, and which implies the wood comes from a tree that was growing in a seasonal climate. However the wood shows enough features distinctive to Podocarp woods, such as smooth horizontal and tangential walls of ray cells without indentures, cupressoid and taxodioid pits on cross fields, that Li et al. are confident in its assignment to the Podocarpaceae.

Diptocarp wood from the northwest of India. Diptocarps, Dipterocarpaceae, are the dominant trees of modern South
and Southeast Asian rainforests, and are also found in South America, Africa
and Madagascar. The group reach their maximum diversity today on the island of
Bornea, where there are over 280 described species of Diptocarp, but the
earliest...

Cassavas, Manihot spp., are a group of trees and shrubs in the Milkspurge family, Euphorbiaceae, which includes the widely cultivated Edible Cassava, Manihot esculenta. The genus is thought to have originated in Central America, but reaches its maximum diversity in the Cerrado (savanah), Caatinga (thornscrub), and Amazon (rainforest) ecosystems of Brazil, where about 80 of the 100 known species are found.

In a paper published in the Nordic Journal of Botany on 22 January 2016, Marcos José da Silva, Alexandre Antonio Alonso, and Rodolfo Carneiro Sodré of the Departamento de Botânica at the Universidade Federal de Goiás, describe a new species of Cassava from the Cerrado of Goiás State, Brazil.

The new species is named Manihot pachycaulis, where 'pachycaulis' means 'thick-stemmed'. The plants are dwarf shrubs reaching 15-45 cm in height, with pendant flowers and lobed leaves. The species was found growing on Cerrado Grasslands in the Chapada dos Veadeiros region of Goiás State, on hillslopes with clay or clay and rock soils, at altitudes of between 705 and 1028 m above sealevel.

Two new species of Bigonia from Brazil. Bigonias of the genus Tynanthus
are lianas (woody climbers) found across the Neotropics (tropical areas of
Central and South America), but reaching their maximum diversity in the wet
forests of...

Tuesday, 30 August 2016

TheUnited States Geological Surveyrecorded a Magnitude 3.8 Earthquake at a depth of 35.1 kmabout 40 km to the east of Anchorage, Alaska, slightly before 4.30 am local time (slightly before 12.30 pm GMT) on Tuesday 30 May 2016. There are no reports of any damage or casualties associated with this event, but people have reported feeling it locally.

Alaska lies on the North American Plate, with the Pacific Plate underlying the ocean to the south. The Aleutian Trench runs along much of the south coast of Alaska, with the Pacific Plate being subducted beneath this and passing under Alaska as it sinks into the Earth. The 4 January quake occurred in the far southeast of the state; east of the extent of the Aleutian Trench. Off the coast of southeast Alaska the Pacific and North American Plates pass one-another horizontally, with the Pacific Plate moving northward and the North American to the south (a transform plate margin). This is not a smooth process, and the plates frequently stick together, then break apart as the pressure builds up, causing Earthquakes.

Model of the subduction of the Pacific Plat beneath the North American Plate along the southern coast of Alaska and the Aleutians. United States Geological Survey.

Witness accounts of quakes can help geologists to understand these events and the rock structures that cause them. If you felt this quake (or if you were in the area but did not, which is also useful information) you can report it to the USGS here.

A total of 323 Reindeer have been killed by a lightning strike during a thunder storm on the Hardanangervidda National Park on Friday 26 August 2016, according to the Norwegian Environment Agency. The Reindeer migrate across the park, which is a mountainous plateau, at this time of year, and are believed to have huddled together during the storm, an action which helps to protect the younger members of the herd (which included 70 calves) from the worst of the elements, but which makes them particularly vulnerable to (rare) lightning strikes.

Reindeer killed by lightning on the Hardangervidda Plateau on 26 August 2016. Håvard Kjøntvedt/Norwegian Environment Agency.

Thunderstorms occur when warm, moist bodies of air encounter cooler, drier air packages. The warm air rises over the cooler air until it rises above its dew point (the point where it cools to far to retain its water content as vapor), and the water precipitates out, falling as rain, sleet or hail.

Warm moist air passing over the surface of the Earth acts as an electrical generator, creating a negative charge in the cloud tops and a positive charge at the ground (or occasionally in a second cloud layer). The atmosphere acts as an electrical insulator, allowing this potential to build up, until water begins to precipitate out. This allows a channel of ionized air to form, carrying a current between the clouds and the ground, which we perceive as lightning.

Fireball over northern Europe.Eyewitnesses across much of northern Europe reported seeing a bright fireball in the sky moving southwest to northeast at about 6.05 pm GMT on Saturday 31 October 2015. The event was seen from the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark...

One worker is being treated for injuries and another has died following a landslide in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday 30 August 2016. The incident happened in the north of the city slightly before 4.00 pm, following a period of heavy rain. Neither of the men has been named, though the dead man has been identified as a Bangladeshi national and the injured man as a 28-year-old Malaysian.

Malaysia has become increasingly landslip-prone in recent years due to
extensive deforestation, which leaves soil exposed to heavy tropical
rainfall. Landslides are a common problem after severe weather events,
as excess pore water pressure can overcome cohesion in soil and
sediments, allowing them to flow like liquids. August is one of the driest months in Kuala Lumpur, where the monsoon season lasted from October to March, however the city has a wet tropical climate, and heavy storms can happen at any time of year.

Truck swallowed by Singapore sinkhole.A truck carrying sand for the construction industry was partially
swallowed by a sinkhole in Singapore on Thursday 24 April 2014. The
incident happened at about 8.30 am local time when the driver of the
truck...

Monday, 29 August 2016

Ceratocaryum argenteum is a large Rush-like Grass native to Cape region in South Africa. It produces lage, hard seeds which Dung Beetles have been observed burrying, despite the fact that they do not appear to be a suitable food source for either the Beetles or their larvae, which has led to suggestions that the seeds somehow mimic the dung of a large Antelope, fooling the Beetles into burrying the seeds.

Midgley and White placed piles of Ceratocaryum argenteum seeds beside a sand road in the De Hoop Nature Reserve in early in the morning after heavy rain events in February 2016. They found that two species of Dung Beetle, Epirinus flagellatus and Scarabaeus spretus, arrived at the seed stations within a few minutes of placing the seeds, and immediately began rolling the seeds away and burrying them. One specimen of Scarabaeus spretus even flew into a bag containing the seeds before they could be placed. Flesh Flies, Sarcophagidae, and Lesser Dung Flies, Sphaeroceridae, were also attracted to the seeds.

(a) Epirinus flagellatus rolling a Ceratocaryum argenteum seed; (b) Scarabaeus spretus rolling a seed (the arrow indicates a Sphaerocerid Lesser Dung Fly); (c) the large hole made by Scarabaeus spretus for burying several seeds (the arrow indicates the location of the Dung Beetle); and (d) a female Sarcophagid Fly on a seed. Midgley & White (2016).

Two Antelope species present in the De Hoop Nature Reserve, the Eland, Taurotragus oryx, and the Bontebok, Damaliscus pygargus. The two species have different diets, with the Bontenok favouring Grasses and the Eland being a browser with a mixed diet.

This is a useful difference, as many tropical Grases use a different photosynthetic method to most other plants (which enables them to use less water in the process), as a side affect of which they tend to fix more of the lighter carbon isotope Carbon 12 (12C) and less of the heavier isotope Carbon 13 (13C), which results in the tissues of animals which eat these Grasses having a distinct isotope signature; useful to archaologists trying to understand the diets of ancient populations and ecologists trying to understand the diets of animals.

The larvae of Dung Beetles feed on undigested plant tissues within dung balls burried by their parents. This means that a Dung Beetle should have a carbon isotope signature which matches the dung of the animal on which it fed. Midgley and White analysed dung from both the Antelope species as well as a number of individuals of both Dung Beetle. Both Beetles had a carbon isotope signature closely matching that of the Eland dung, suggesting that this is their natural diet. Since other large Dung Beetles are present in the De Hoop Nature Reserve which did not pay any attention to the Ceratocaryum argenteum seeds, Midgely & White suggest that the seeds must specifically be mimicing the Eland dung, presumably be emiting chemical signatures (scents) detectable by the Beetles.

The United States Geological Survey
recorded a Magnitude 5.7 Earthquake at a depth of 28.43 km, in the Van Rees Mountains of Papua Province, Indonesia, slightly after 4.20 pm local time (slightly after 7.20 am GMT) on Sunday 28 August 2016.An Earthquake of this size has the potential to cause considerable damage, however the area where it occurred is very remote and there are no reports of any damage or casualties at this time.

The approximate location of the 28 August 2016 Van Rees Mountains Earthquake. Google.

The tectonic situation underlying Papua Province is complex, with the island
being made up of a number of small tectonic plates being squeezed
between the larger Pacific and Australian plates. The area affected by
the 6 April quake lies on the boundary between the Maoke Plate, which
underlies much of Papua Province and the Woodlark Plate, which underlies
much of the east of the island. Other parts of the island lie on the
Bird's Head, Australian and South Bismarck Plates. To the north of Papua Province the Caroline Plate is being subducted in the Manus Trench, which
is parallel to the northern shore of the island.

The plates underlying Papua Province and the surrounding area, along with their directions and rates of movement. Wikipedia.

Witness
accounts of Earthquakes can help geologists to understand these events,
and the structures that cause them. The international non-profit
organization Earthquake Report is interested in hearing from people who
may have felt this event; if you felt this quake then you can report it to Earthquake Report here.

Landslides kills nine in Papua New Guinea.Nine people have died after two landslides swept through the village of
Kenagi, in Papua New Guinea's Eastern Highlands, late in the evening of
Saturday 2 November 2013, and early in the morning of Sunday...

The Miocene Shanya Formation forms part of the geological sequence in the Yinggehai Basin, which underlies part of the northwestern South China Sea. The formation is 2950 m thick at its maximum, and is known to host a number of hydrocarbon reserves, making it of great interest to exploration geologists. The formation comprises shallow marine sedimentary deposits formed by the deposition of material washed from nearby terrestrial environments, however, like many offshore deposits, the processes that led to the formation of the Shanya Formation are poorly understood, making it hard to make predictions about where hydrocarbons might be found within these beds.

In a paper published in the journal Acta Geologica Sinica in February 2016, Wang Ce of the State Key Laboratory of Isotope Geochemistry at the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry and the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Liang Xinquan, also of the State Key Laboratory of Isotope Geochemistry at the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, and Fu Jiangang, Jiang Ying and Dong Chaoge, again of the State Key Laboratory of Isotope Geochemistry at the Guangzhou Institute
of Geochemistry and the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, describe the results of a study in which zircon uranium-lead geochronology was used to develop an understanding of the origins of sedimentary material in the Shanya Formation.

Zircon is a mineral formed by the crystallization of cooling lavas. When
it forms it often contains trace amounts of uranium, which decays into (amongst other things) lead at a
known rate. Since lead (which has a much lower melting point) will not have been present in the original
lava, it is possible to calculate the age of a zircon crystal from the
ratio between these elements.

This has obvious uses for the dating of igneous rocks, but can also be useful in sedimentary geology, since it enables geochemists to link zircons found in sedimentary rocks to their sources (i.e. the igneous rocks from which they were eroded before being deposited in the sedimentary strata).

Wang et al. collected zircons from sandstones attributed to the Sanya Formation from drill cores in the northern, northeaster and eastern parts of the Yinggehai Basin. The first sample (from the north) yielded zircon uranium-lead dates with a very wide range of dates, though the most abundant were 274, 432 and 957 million years old, with smaller peaks in abundance at 793, 1966 and 2481. The second site (from the northeast) yielded a similar range of dates, with the commonest dates being 156 and 428 million years old and smaller peaks at 41, 239 and 733 million years old. The third site (the one in the east) produced zircons with a smaller range of dates, being much younger, with peaks at 99 and 238 million years old.

The youngest zircons present, the 41 million-year-old crystals in the second sample, are approximately the right age to be associated with melting and exhumation during a period of motion on the Red River Fault Zone, which runs through Yunnan Province and Vietnam, and which is a fault within the Yangtze Block that accommodates movement by the Indo-Australian Plate.

The zircons aged 99 and 156 million years old, found in the second and third drill cores, are consistent with the formation of the Yanshanian Granites on Hainan Island in the Late Jurassic-Cretaceous.

Zircons with dates of 230-250 million years old, again found in the second and third samples, are likely to have originated during the collision of the Indochina and Yangtze Blocks, and could have come from a wide range of sources in South China, Vietnam or Hainan Island.

Samples dating to about 430 million years ago, found in the first and second samples, are thought likely to be associated with the Caledonian Orogen, when the ancient continents of Laurentia, Baltica and Avalonia collided during the closure of the Iapetus Ocean; grains of this age are common in South China, but very rare on Hainan.

Grains 700-1000 million years old, again found in the first and second samples only, are likely to have formed during the Jinningian Movement, part of the breakup of the ancient supercontinent of Rodinia, and originated on the Yangtze Block.

Zircons 1966 and 2481 million years old, found only in the first sample, are likely to have formed during the origin of the Yangtze block.

Thus zircons in the sediments from the first and second drill cores are dominated by grains that originated from the Yangtze Block to the north (i.e. mainland China), while the third sample appears to contain mostly zircons that originated on Hainan Island, a source which also provided a significant minority of the material in the second sample.

Assessing the impact of land reclamation in the Spratly Islands.The Spratly Islands are a widely distibuted archipelago of over 750
coral reefs, atols and islands in the South China Sea. Ownership of the
islands is disputed between surrounding nations, with China, Taiwan,
Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and...

Sunday, 28 August 2016

Spongeflies, Sisyridae, are Neuropteran Insects related to Dustywings and Brown Lacewings. The adults closely resemble Brown Lacewings, but the larvae are very different, being aquatic, which is unusual in Neuropterans, and parasitic on Freshwater Sponges and Bryozoans. There are about 60 species living today, but like other Neuropterans the group is ancient, with a fossil record going back to the Crecaceous, and modern Spongeflies are probably less diverse than the ancient members of the group.

The new species is placed in the genus Paleosisyra, which includes two previous species described from Baltic Amber, and given the specific name minor, meaning 'small' in Latin, due to the small size of the specimen, which has a forewing length of only 3.5 mm (compared to 4.0-5.2 for other members of the genus. The species is described from a single well preserved male specimen preserved in a piece of almost clear Baltic Amber.

Citrus Trees and Shrubs of the genus Melicope are found across tropical Asia and the Islands of the Pacific to Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii. They are variously known as Corkwoods, Doughwoods, Euodoias, Alani, Melicopes or Peleas. The plants are hosts to many species of Insects and other invertebrates, including many species of Butterfly and Moth Caterpillars, and Beetles and their larvae, making them an important part of the ecosystems in which they are found. However many species in Hawaii are threatened by habitat loss and competition from invasive plants.

The new species is named Melicope oppenheimeri, in honour of Hank Oppenheimer of the Maui Nui Plant Extinction Prevention Program, who collected the first specimens of the plant. The new species is a small tree reaching 3-4 m in height, producing flowers and fruit more-or-less year round.

Only seven trees of Melicope oppenheimeri were found, growing in the upper part of the Waihe‘e Valley at an elevation of about 770 m. Only three of these trees currently survive, and no further trees have been found, though the site where the trees were growing was accessable only by helicopter. The area is considered to be degraded by ferral Pigs, Sus scrofa, which have been introduced to the island, and which modify their environement by their foraging in ways which are highly detrimental to native Hawai'ian plants, as well as by numerous non-native plants which survive well in Pig-modified environments.

Coprosma cordicarpa: A new species of Pilo from Hawai‘i.Pilos, Comprosma spp., are fruiting plants related to the Coffees, Coffea spp.,
found on Pacific islands from Borneo to the Juan Fernández Islands,
with the maximum diversity occuring in New Zealand, where there are 55
recorded species. Pilos range from trailing woody shrubs to small trees,
and produce a...

Mudskippers, Periophthalmus spp., are highly specialized Goby Fish, Gobiidae, are highly specialized amphibious Fish found across the tropical and sub-tropical Indo-Pacific and Eastern Atlantic Oceans. The Fish have eyes high on their heads, and modified pectoral girdles which enable them to move about on land, and are often seen foraging on mudflats and in Mangrove forests.

The new species is named Periophthalmus pusing, which derives from the local name for the species 'Ikan Pusing' ot 'Dizzy Fish'; the local people claim that eating the Mudskippers causes headaches and giddyness. The Fish were originally mistaken for members of another species, the widespread Periophthalmus gracilis, which they resemble very closely in size, morphology, colouration and markings, but careful examination revealed that the two species differ in the structure of their fins. As such Periophthalmus pusing is considered to be a cryptic species (cryptic species are species that closely resemble other species, and
cannot be separated by simple, non-invasive examination); at the current time the species is known only from a single location, the Kawangu Mangrove Forest on Sumba Island, but it is quite possible that other known populations of Periophthalmus gracilis are in fact members of the new species.

A new species of freshwater Goby from Sulawesi. Gobies are small, benthic (bottom
dwelling) members of the Perch Order, found in marine and freshwater
environments around the world, but most numerous and diverse in the
Indo-Pacific region. There are...

About Me

Studied Palaeobiology & Evolution at the University of Portsmouth, Geosciences via the Open University & Ecology and Conservation at Christchurch University, Canterbury.
Have worked in wildlife based tourism, mineral exploration, development, conservation, education & environmental chemistry. Occasionally write articles for papers and magazines.

This Blog would be impossible without the work of countless scientists (and others) throughout the world. Where possible I do my best to credit them, but there will always be many more who remain unmentioned; this does not imply I am ungrateful for their contributions. Any errors or inaccuracies are, of course, my own.